


Something Old, Something New

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [1]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Brief suicidal ideation, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Reyja helps Julian clean out his old house and ponders the luck that got them there.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Character(s)
Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753846
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Something Old, Something New

**Author's Note:**

> For the Love Like Yours prompt "Start of Something New"

“Why do you still have these?”

The socks I just found, balled up in the corner of the narrow closet that served as Julian’s bachelor bedroom, have holes in the heels so big I can stick my hands all the way through.

“Oh, erm. I thought I could patch them?” Julian puts down the plate he found under his squashed armchair in the living area. His former lodgings are so small that, despite being in separate rooms, we could reach out and touch each other. At least he’ll feel at home in the shop.

“Really?” I pull the socks up to my elbows. The holes don’t even have to stretch to accomodate my forearms. “Really?”

“Ahh… maybe not.” 

He laughs bashfully as he stretches towards me for a kiss. I could be mean and make him touch the sweat-stained cotton instead, but I’m in too good of a mood. We’re finally getting his things in order, packing up what hasn’t already migrated into the shop’s cramped quarters. He barely returns here anyway; maybe once every few days he’ll swing by to grab another shirt or a spare inkwell, but he doesn’t stay. I know there’s a lot of heartache between these dilapidated walls. Failure. Loss. Regret. The very air thrums with stress, as though the echoes of his anguish still thrash through it like panicking fish. 

He lived here during the Plague. 

Part of him died here, too.

The box we brought to help us carry what he wants to keep will be more than enough. It’s barely half-full as it is, and we’re nearly done. He’s been avoiding the desk, though, with its carpet of old papers and notebooks open to illegible scrawlings. But there are only so many ways he can rearrange his books before he’ll have to face it. 

I kiss him gently, a soft brush of my lips against his. Just as gently, he tugs his old socks off my wrists and throws them into the pile of other discards: coffee mugs stained beyond help, shopping lists and reminders, half a loaf of bread that crumbles if touched. Remnants of his past, of the life he tried so hard to hold together against the Plague’s grasping claws. 

I’ve seen my name only once, on the corner of a slip of paper that may have been a prescription order. “Ask Reyja—,” it said, with the rest smudged into obscurity. I can’t help but wonder what he wanted to ask me, if he got the chance to before…

Likely, it was mundane. We were coworkers, after all. Supplies, maybe, or a patient’s prognosis. I’m sure I’m not missing anything with that memory lost to wherever memories go when the mind that contained them blinks out. Even if I could remember, I probably wouldn’t. Something so small as a question asked in passing shouldn’t leave a mark, right? Unless, of course, it wasn’t small. Unless he wanted to ask me to dinner, to stay late with him, to run away and start over somewhere else, where we’d never have to worry again.

Would I have done it?

It doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, it would've happened years ago to people who no longer exist. The Reyja in that note isn’t me. The Julian who wrote it isn’t him. 

But this Reyja and this Julian can have what they couldn’t.

Julian rests his forehead against mine and sighs. Our fingers mesh; our palms press together. He swallows hard.

“Well,” he says heavily. “It’s not getting any easier.”

“I’m here, Juley.”

He smiles. “Yes, you are.”

Yes, I am. I’m here, with him, and we’re rebuilding. Through fire and rain and magic and medicine, we’re planting a new seed in the ashes of the old. We got a second chance, though really it’s been a whole chain of chances that, against all odds, have worked out in our favor. I would call it impossible if it hadn’t happened to me. 

We sit together for a moment, sharing strength. I get the sense he’ll need it. He must know at least some of what’s over there, cluttering up the desktop, or he wouldn’t be so anxious. There’s a fine sheen of sweat on his brow when I kiss him again.

I would love to be able to tell him it’s just paper. Just ink and paper. Just ink and paper and the hopes of a desperate man. I know it’s not. The scattered pages, torn from notebooks to be covered in unanswerable questions, are dreams and nightmares. So much hinged on the words he wrote, the calculations and diagrams he made. Whether he took that responsibility by mistake or on purpose, Julian pinned everything on curing the Plague. First out of determination and the challenge it presented, then, after he lost me, as a memorial. The last homage of someone with nothing else to give. The last piece of a puzzle he couldn't solve. 

It makes my heart ache to know that, had he not succeeded, he would’ve joined me in death’s darkness. He might have tried to anyway, without Asra and the Hanged Man. In a way, the Hanged Man saved him body and spirit when he took Julian’s memories of me: with no one to die for, he chose to live. 

And here we are.

“We can do this,” I murmur. “ _You_ can do this.”

Something in my words or the stir of my breath seems to galvanize him. Julian unfolds his long legs and rises, offering his hand to help me up too.

“Thank you, darling,” he says simply.

I have so much to be grateful for: life, love, serendipity. Knowing and being known. Support. Communication. Friendship. 

New beginnings, rising like a phoenix from flames long burnt to embers.

They say bone grows stronger where it’s been broken. I don’t have any proof of that, per se, but I know someone who might.

I’ll have to ask him.


End file.
